So-called vectoring or vectored data transmission is a technique for coordinated transmission or reception of data from a plurality of transmitters to a plurality of receivers via a plurality of communication connections in order to improve the transmission, for example to reduce the influence of crosstalk. Either transmitters or receivers are co-located.
For example, in DSL (digital subscriber line) transmission systems, for example VDSL (very high bit rate DSL) transmission systems, data may be transmitted from a central office (CO) or other provider equipment to a plurality of receivers located in different locations, for example in customer premises (CPE), via a plurality of communication lines. Crosstalk resulting from signals on different lines transmitted in the same direction, also referred to as far end crosstalk (FEXT), may result in a reduced data throughput. Through vectoring, signals transmitted over the plurality of communication lines from the central office or received via the plurality of communication lines in the central office may be processed jointly in order to reduce such crosstalk, which joint processing corresponds to the above-mentioned vectoring. In this respect, the reduction of crosstalk by coordinated transmission of signals is sometimes referred to as crosstalk precompensation, whereas the reduction of crosstalk through joint processing of the received signals is sometimes referred to as crosstalk cancellation. The communication connections which are processed jointly are sometimes referred to as vectored group.
Both at the initialization of communication and during communication, it may be necessary to add an additional communication connection to the vectored group, for example when an additional user of a DSL service becomes active. In such a case, it is desirable to determine the crosstalk coupling between the communication connection to be added to the vectored group and the communication connections in the vectored group. To this end, usually predefined sequences, for example sequences of pilot signals or training signals are transmitted via the communication connections, and the received signals are compared to the sent signals to determine an error signal. The crosstalk coupling between the communication connections are then determined based on these errors.
For very large systems comprising many communication connections, this determination is computationally complex, i.e., requires many individual calculation operations, and may take a considerable amount of time, as long sequences may have to be used for training.
Furthermore, in some situations the crosstalk couplings between communication connections may suddenly change, such that for example one communication connection of a vectored group suddenly significantly disturbs other communication connections of the vectored group and/or is disturbed by other communication connections of the vectored group. Such changes of the crosstalk coupling between two or more of the communication connections of a vectored group may for example be caused by failure of components of communication devices involved, loose connections or the like.